Motion tracking hardware and software have been developed and are utilized in numerous industries (e.g., video gaming, medicine, three-dimensional animation, physical rehabilitation) and countless products (the Microsoft® Kinect®). However, current motion tracking derivative products leave the physical education and sports disciplines with much to be desired. Current systems that can track and analyze complex human movement cannot be used except by trained specialists in the fields of exercise science, biomechanics, kinematics, or other fields. Current systems require exhaustive video analysis and on-screen measurement tools and/or the concerted effort of video observation and individual body sensors to determine what is occurring with the human body during a specific movement task. Some systems require special attire tracked by infrared camera to detect joints in three-dimensional space. In any case, current systems are expensive and provide raw data that would be useless for most end-users of a motor skills testing system (e.g., a physical education coach).
The Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE America) provides national content standards for physical education that guides the state content expectations for all 50 states. These standards are rich with resources outlining essential skills that students need to become physically literate, but do not provide any empirical method for assessing whether students are meeting the expectations set forth by organizational bodies. That is to say, there is no consistent, repeatable testing method for physical education due to the subjectivity of human perception when assessing the proficiency of another human's motor skills.
Thus there exists a need for kinematic motor skills testing system that is objective, consistent, reliable, non-invasive, cost-effective, and easily used by non-specialists.